This company, ABOAFSITE, produces and commercializes natural gum base, which is much in demand these days. You can check www.natural-chicle.net .They claim all the healthy benefits of using a natural product. They can also produce the final chewing gum itself (private label). In fact some of the companies that I have mentioned in previous posts appear in their website: Humble and Co, Simply Gum, etc..).

The company supplies natural gum base in different formats (slab or powder) and versions (different molecular weight). The prices are also in the website.

There you can also find some interesting videos where you can see the real Sapotilla tree (where it all begun!!!) and some ideas and recipes to make different types of gum, always using their natural gum base. The natural claim is followed by a “non machinery” claim, which involves making the gum by hand. At the moment the market share of these chewing gum brands are tiny, but there are more and more players joining the wave and some of them a getting bigger. Then manual production will be a limitation and machinery needs to be considered if relevant amounts have to produced.

I hope you find this interesting, as this is one of the most powerful trends in the market today. Not only in the chewing gum industry, but in the whole food products: Everybody goes crazy for “Natural”, which is automatically associated with “Healthy” (something that I am not sure always works….).

I have posted in the past about DRIVE GUM (www.drivegum.com). This gum contains caffein + guaraná.

Now the same company offers “NATUR GUM” , which instead of focusing on the energy, it goes in the direction of the natural ingredients. It claims to use 100% natural ingredients, which includes natural gum base from Central America, the flavours, the sweeteners (Xylitol and/or Stevia). Even the packaging!

There are 3 types of gum in the range, which include functional ingredients like vitamin D and fluoride, while the compnay is working on other SKU, like “Multivitamin”, “Hunger inhibitor” and “Hemp”.

Witht his additions to the previous Energy Gum, the portfolio covers a good variety of functional applications.

The owner of the company, Mr Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, has been clever enough to register the domain www.functionalgums.com

This is a new company in the field of chewing gum. They exhibited at last ISM for the first time.

Based in Sweden, they focus on oral care products (toothpaste and toothbrush are their stars) with a natural and evironmentally friendy approach. Their chewing gum completes this oral care range and it claims to be compeltely natural: Natural gum base, no sugar, etc. Even the packaging is eco-friendly. The gum comes in three different flavors: Mint, Lemon, Topical Fruits and Salty Liquorice (to honour their Scandinavian origin!).

More and more companies jump on this trend for natural products. Sometimes the legislation is not clear about what can be claimed or not (the words “eco”, “organic”, “natural”, “bio”, … have sometimes blurred borders and change depending on the legislation of each country) so I think it is a very tricky field, althougb for sure one that will take more and more share in the near future.

This new player in the Iranian chewing gum scene is the first time that exhibits in ISM. They produce different brands of chewing gum: Biodent, Nature Dent, Action.

The presentations are also diverse (dragees in fliptop box or ministicks in multipack), as the range of flavors, including some really excetional like “mojito”, “camomile”, “walnut oil” and “frankincense”!

Following my post from yesterday, I’d like to mention the “Nature Dent” brand, which claims to contain natural gum base (it is not clear to me what they mean by this) and no atificial flavors and colors, no aspartame or sucralose. No additives or preservatives and GMO Free. The gum base is “of course biodegradable”, which is very interesting. So the product is claimed to be 100% natural and organic.

This follows the trend already mentioned of “clean label”. More and more consumers worldwide don’t like to have those “weird” names of ingredients written the label of the product (antioxidant, artificial sweetener, …) and the manufacturers, of course, need to adapt their products to this demand.

“Action” brand turns around the idea of Energy, Excitement and Dynamism.

“Biodent” is the widest brand, sugarfree and with many flavors and packagings. There are two sub-brands named “Stardent” and “Vitadent” and all them claim oral care properties. The presentation of those products is really impressive, with a very smart design and bright colors. Special mention to the printing in Braile in the “Biodent mojito”

One of the big trends in the food industry (not only in chewing gum) is the “natural” claim. The legislation about what can be claimed as “natural”, or other terms as “organic”, “bio”, … differs from country to country. This makes the tasks involved in the development of those products more tricky.

In any case, during last ISM was presented what is claimed to be “the first organic gum ever”. The claim is supported by the USDA organic certificate and also the European one.

The chewing gum, presented in coated dragees (17 pieces in a zipperbag, 24 grams) and uses natural chicle from the sapotilla trees in Central America. It contains to no synthetics, no artificial colors or flavors and no preservatives. Of course, it is sugarfree. It is produced in Tunisia, but the company that commercializes it is a Danish one, named Ökolife. (for more info go to the link to their website).

On the other hand, ProSweets exhibition, which runs parallel to the ISM and where we can find the suppliers to the industry (machinery, ingredients, packaging, …), has been significantly smaller this year. The reason is that most of the machinery suppliers where not there exhibiting because this year in May there will be the 2017 Edition of INTERPACK, in Düsseldorf. This has been the traditional big show for the machinery suppliers, so it seems that keeping both (ProSweets and Interpack) in the same year was not convenient for them.

It comes originally in cinnamon flavor but it seems that they are expanding the range to licorice and ginger.

We can find more and more of these products that claim organic/natural/bio/… which is a clear trend in our society. They still take a very tiny share of the market due to different reasons: Sometimes quality, sometimes limited marketing (and financial) power in front of the big guys, sometimes the consumer is not aware (or is not ready to pay more, or finds it difficult to find, …). It will be interesting to see the evolution of such brands in the near future.